Soldering 101

Check out this short article from Beavis Audio Research. Great advice on choosing a soldering iron, and a nice introduction to some of the basic moves, plus a few good jokes. Many other fine tutorials at this superb DIY site.

2 comments to Soldering 101

Im about to build some dist pedals. what i want this time is to place some trimpots in place of key resistors before assembly, and switchable caps so i could play with the values and hit my own sweet spot (id remove switchs and trims and place correct cap, resisostor, etc) . If you have tips on this would be great

Absolutely! That’s why I want to start with a breadboard, rather than a circuit board. I want to get into customizing the sound right from the get-go.

In my own pedal-building, a HUGE amount of my time goes into doing exactly what you describe. Even if, like me, you only have a sketchy understanding of the physics behind this stuff, you can learn to customize sound by nudging values of any component up or down.

For the uninitiated: A pot, or potentiometer, is simply a resistor with adjustable resistance. If you wanted to try different resistors in a circuit, you could pop in a bunch of different ones, or just use a pot, adjust it till it sounds cool, then either a) measure the setting and use a resistor of that value, or b) substitute the pot for the resistor in the design, letting the user choose the value. The latter is the philosophy behind freak fuzzes like the Z. Vex Fuzz Factory. They’re usually simple, ’60s-style fuzz circuits, with a user-adjustable cap replacing some of the original circuit’s fixed resistors.